Description

Pete Flint and Sami Inkinen, co-founders of RealWide.com, a real estate search web site, met for lunch at the Fish Market restaurant in San Mateo, Calif. to discuss the coming week. It was September 21, 2005, and they planned to have their web site go live within a week. Although both felt proud of what they had accomplished over the last year, this was certainly not the time for nostalgia or back-patting. A number of critical pre-launch issues would likely consume this morning's discussion. In particular, they had yet to finalize the details of their first major financing and decide on a national or local (i.e., Bay Area) focus. Additionally, certain real estate listing web sites were threatening to block their search crawlers; some of their advisors were urging them to focus more on strategic issues and less on tactical execution details; and then there was the matter of the name-did RealWide truly represent their company? As they sat down, they both wondered, what would the coming week bring?

Learning objective:

Process of starting a consumer online business. How should the business model be adjusted based on feedback and new information? How to strategically align or compete with the incumbents (in this case, the MLS)? How to prepare contingency planning based on potential risks? What type of funding to take and at what time?